HD Heads-Up: June 15-21

Enjoy the latest camouflaged-camera natural history series in HD on TV One as it appears Penguins: Spy in the Huddle won’t be getting a Blu-ray release here.

It premieres on June 18 and is out on Blu-ray in the UK but will be DVD-only in NZ and Australia.

The Times called the footage “astonishing … As we got up close and personal with the penguin-cams, there was a perfect balance between emotional depth and comedy.”

“As fascinating as penguins are, the logistics in ensuring the penguin-cams are in the right place at the right time in this series is every bit as impressive,” the Daily Mirror observed.

The Daily Mail thought the three-part series “an amusing and fascinating insight into some of nature’s most devoted parents” while The Sun quipped: “Your heart can’t help but melt.”

However, that wasn’t true of all critics. “I like penguins (who doesn’t?),” asked The Guardian. “And there are some lovely ones in Penguins – Spy in the Huddle …

“Some of the footage is filmed from extraordinarily close range, by cameras disguised as rocks, eggs, penguins. Robot-camera penguins – brilliant.

“But David Tennant’s narration is infuriating, full of anthropomorphism and puns .. And then the music – comedy plinky-plonky rockhopper music for the rockhoppers, soaring strings for the Emperors in the storm …

“Stop it! I don’t need music, or David Tennant, telling me when something’s funny or sad or anything.”

Complained The Independent: “The penguin, of course, is challenged only by the meerkat as the most typecast animal on the small screen, and Spy in the Huddle did nothing to challenge that.”